In the modern world, goods or services may be offered through or supported by a telecommunications-based network of call centers which can receive calls from various customers. Each call center may comprise a combination of human and machine resources which are intended to serve and be responsive to the needs or desires of the customers. The human resources may include a plurality of customer service representatives. Typically, these customer service representatives have varying levels of ability with regard to expertise on particular products and/or services, interpersonal skills, company policies, or any of a number of other things. An important objective of a call center network is to provide each customer who calls in with the highest quality of service within the shortest amount of time by the most qualified customer service representative available who has at his or her disposal the appropriate information for a particular customer call.
Previously, in a network comprising a plurality of call centers, an incoming call could be received initially at any one of the call centers. Because this receiving call center was not always the one most suitable for handling the call (e.g., the customer service representatives at the receiving call center lacked sufficient knowledge of a particular line of products), such a call would need to be transferred to another call center for handling in many cases. A transfer between call centers, however, tied up valuable resources in the call center network. At a minimum, the transfer required an incoming line supporting the call into the receiving call center, an outgoing line from the receiving call center, and an incoming line into the call center to which the call was transferred. All of these lines would be utilized, and thus unavailable for other calls, until the transferred call was completed. Furthermore, if the call needed to be transferred to yet another call center or back to the receiving call center, additional lines would be utilized. Consequently, in order to provide quality service to customers, a sufficient number of lines were required to support the receipt of incoming calls and transfer of these calls between call centers.
Systems have previously been developed to route calls to different call centers within a call center network. In such systems, a call coming into the network would be routed to the call center with the shortest wait time for the incoming call. This typically corresponded to the call center with the greatest number of available customer service representatives. However, the call center with the shortest wait time was not necessarily the most appropriate call center for handling the incoming call. Consequently, in these prior systems, calls would still need to be transferred between call centers.